Vettel beat Mark this season with luck and team favouritism... although any of the top 6 with a bit of extra luck could've won this season, take Alonso, super consistent in a reliable but barely above average paced car, only lost by 3 points.

Vettel generally qualified better than Mark, and had better starts than Mark. The team can skew both of those things, and they did more often than not.

I hope Vettel matures at a faster rate because he still seems like a child throwing tantrums most of the time, it's the biggest reason why I dislike him.

Mark still proved he has the pace to fight with the best this season, a good comeback from last seasons woes. 2013 is where he needs to get more consitency so he is at the pointy end of the WDC come seasons end.

But in another thread you reasoned that Alonso only passes Mark... " Fernando getting past Mark was PURELY the RBR's horrible top speed and gearing compared to Ferrari's straight line rocket". And to somehow try and denigrate Vettel's "3point wdc" doesn't do Mark any favours when he finished a staggering 99 points behind...which is it? Vettel driving such a massively dominant car and only winning by 3 points must surely mean that Webber driving the same car being obviously several levals below other top drivers.....after 3 years of the excuses they become rather meaningless.

Unfortunately for Mark the season of Red Bull favoring Vettel has left him some distance off. I've seen his driving, he has put in plenty of good races and Red Bull have just thrown him to the wolves.

Like at Hungary, they pitted him unnecessarily to get him out of Vettel's way just to get him stuck behind slower cars. Or at Singapore, they followed the most retarded pit strategy known to man to get him somehow stuck dead last at the end. Or Abu Dhabi. Again, pitting him out of Seb's way resulting in a DNF for Mark.

His Brazilian GP was ruined by Kobayashi, but despite the fact Mark avoided seb all race he still trounced him in the end.

Its just been such a frustrating second half of the year for Mark, mostly caused by Red Bull treating him as an also ran for Sebastian.

But in another thread you reasoned that Alonso only passes Mark... " Fernando getting past Mark was PURELY the RBR's horrible top speed and gearing compared to Ferrari's straight line rocket". And to somehow try and denigrate Vettel's "3point wdc" doesn't do Mark any favours when he finished a staggering 99 points behind...which is it? Vettel driving such a massively dominant car and only winning by 3 points must surely mean that Webber driving the same car being obviously several levals below other top drivers.....after 3 years of the excuses they become rather meaningless.

Vettel deserved to win, Webber didn't. That much is black and white. If you remove any intra-team advantage..mostly boils down to consistency, of qualifying performance and off the start line.

_________________[[[[Mark Webber for the WIN in 2013]]][[[[Mark Webber for the WEC in 2014 and beyond ]]]

Like at Hungary, they pitted him unnecessarily to get him out of Vettel's way just to get him stuck behind slower cars. Or at Singapore, they followed the most retarded pit strategy known to man to get him somehow stuck dead last at the end. Or Abu Dhabi. Again, pitting him out of Seb's way resulting in a DNF for Mark.

His Brazilian GP was ruined by Kobayashi, but despite the fact Mark avoided seb all race he still trounced him in the end.

Let's see, Web gets a non-optimal strategy and it's RB ruining his race. Vet gets the wrong tires in Brazil and had to stop again, losing more than 30 seconds overall, but that was Web trouncing Vet Very objective view. Without the extra pitstop, Vettel would have been on the podium, given his excellent speed in the wet, even with the damaged car.

I can't even visit this thread any more. I feel like I should put in a disclaimer stating that "the views expressed by certain deluded Webber fans do not necessarily represent the views of all of his supporters", as some of what I'm reading is unbelievable! It's one rule for Webber and another for everyone else. You're making the rest of us look bad! Even Webber himself would probably read this and laugh his donkey off!

Vettel is the better driver. Sure, I agree that he's favoured in the team but that does not account for his soundly beating Webber every year that they've been teammates. This should have hit home by now. Y'all carry on though and keep patting each other's backs.

Mark Webber is faster than bare results show; his 2010 season was so close to bagging the WDC, he virtually equalled Vettel in every measure (speed, results,etc). Mark has put in some exceptional races , Silverstone with the old wing, Monaco twice, in 2011 with Rosberg breathing down his neck in a faster car and on a greasy track near the end. Not a single mistake.

Imo the effect of being a number two driver has a huge (negative) effect on results. It was the same with Coulthard in 1998-2000, when he was running so close to Hakkinen in speed. DC also often raced so well: at Monaco and elsewhere, yet the WDC points and results do not show the closeness in performance to their number ones.

The amount of media attention/time the number one drivers get is disproportiionate, so the 'other' drivers are significantly and unrealistically downgraded in perceptions.

Mark Webber is faster than bare results show; his 2010 season was so close to bagging the WDC, he virtually equalled Vettel in every measure (speed, results,etc). Mark has put in some exceptional races , Silverstone with the old wing, Monaco twice, in 2011 with Rosberg breathing down his neck in a faster car and on a greasy track near the end. Not a single mistake.

Imo the effect of being a number two driver has a huge (negative) effect on results. It was the same with Coulthard in 1998-2000, when he was running so close to Hakkinen in speed. DC also often raced so well: at Monaco and elsewhere, yet the WDC points and results do not show the closeness in performance to their number ones.

The amount of media attention/time the number one drivers get is disproportiionate, so the 'other' drivers are significantly and unrealistically downgraded in perceptions.

Good to have threads on such drivers as MW.

And even DC admits that Mark is a much better driver than he ever was.Korea 2010 was such a shame for Webber.

No Australian has ever won the Australian GP, or even managed a podium there. The best ever result is a 4th place by MW last year.

I'm not sure what to make of the two free practice sessions other than to note that RBR appears to have a very good package once again. My gut feeling says it will be Vettel on pole, split with Webber in 3rd or 4th.

All these official threads popping up, and none yet for my favourite driver, Mark Webber!

There has been plenty of discussion as to whether Mark can challenge Sebastian this year. I certainly hope he can, or at the very least improve over his 2011 performance, which overall was pretty strong - it just was made to look bad by Vettel's excellent campaign!

I frequently keep hearing that various changes to the cars/rules & regs may better suit Webber this year - can anyone elaborate on this for me?

This article puts it really well - Mark has a lot of challenges but he certainly can do it...

Quote:

The Aussie super-hero faces one of the largest challenges of his driving career. He has the maturity to be calm, but below his still waters is a deeper torrent. At 36, despite feeling young, Webber is forced to confront his fate.

Webber's tyres look in a lot better condition then Sebastians, Vettel did 2 flyers, Webber only did 1. Also Webber has the inside line and there shouldn't be too much difference between either side of the grid, lets hope for a good start.

Webber's tyres look in a lot better condition then Sebastians, Vettel did 2 flyers, Webber only did 1. Also Webber has the inside line and there shouldn't be too much difference between either side of the grid, lets hope for a good start.

"Before the race even started we had a lot of problems getting the telemetry from the cars to the pits. We lost KERS (the car's kinetic energy recovery system), we lost quite a lot of things for the start," Webber said.

"We were on the ropes really before the lights went out.

"And then we went quite heavy on that first set of tyres."

Webber's awful start was then followed by an uncharacteristically slow pit stop - one of three his Red Bull had to make for tyres as the car struggled to live with the new Pirellis being used in the sport this year.

But despite all that, Webber believed he and his car were off the pace, even if he had managed a better start and with better tyre life.

"It looked like we were not that quick anyway to challenge for the win as a team. But of all the times in Melbourne I needed a safety car or something to spice it up, it never came.

"Before the race even started we had a lot of problems getting the telemetry from the cars to the pits. We lost KERS (the car's kinetic energy recovery system), we lost quite a lot of things for the start," Webber said.

"We were on the ropes really before the lights went out.

"And then we went quite heavy on that first set of tyres."

Webber's awful start was then followed by an uncharacteristically slow pit stop - one of three his Red Bull had to make for tyres as the car struggled to live with the new Pirellis being used in the sport this year.

But despite all that, Webber believed he and his car were off the pace, even if he had managed a better start and with better tyre life.

"It looked like we were not that quick anyway to challenge for the win as a team. But of all the times in Melbourne I needed a safety car or something to spice it up, it never came.

"It's disappointing not to get more out of it."

And Sebs worked perfectly and great pit stops for him too ... So not his fault a bad start.. Trying to defend against other cars off the line all who had an extra 80bhp... Bloody strong drive in the circumstances I'd say ...